I’m at Cowley Street, at the election count for the next President of the Liberal Democrats.

The count has just been completed and the result is as follows:

Tim Farron: 14,593 votes
Susan Kramer: 12,950 votes

Tim Farron will take up office on 1st January 2011, succeeding Ros Scott.

A total of 65,861 ballot papers were issued and the turnout was 41.9%. 64 ballots were spoiled.

Total ballots returned 27,607.

The outgoing President, Ros Scott, has just emailed party members with this message:

I’m writing to let you know the exciting news that Tim Farron has been elected as the next President of our party. You can find the full result here.

We were incredibly fortunate in this election to have two outstanding candidates for President either of whom would have done a great job. And I’m sure I speak for the whole party when I say that I know Susan will continue to play a huge role in the future of our party.

Tim’s record of campaigning in the party is second to none. The enthusiasm, commitment and dynamism that he will bring to the job will be a huge asset to our party over the coming years. Being in coalition government has brought us huge challenges that we as a party are having to face for the first time in 65 years. And I am certain that Tim – working with Nick Clegg and his Ministerial team – will grab these challenges with both hands.

Being Party President has been both a huge amount of work and an enormous privilege over the last two years and I will certainly never forget the thrilling moments of the closing weeks of the General Election campaign and the days and nights that followed the result. So I’d like to thank everybody who has supported and worked with me over the last two years, especially my family. I could not have done what I have done without them.

I wish Tim all the very best of luck, I know the party will be safe in his hands.

Susan’s campaign featured a survey of members. So far as I am awre, she did not follow it up by publishing the results. Perhaps Liberal Democrat Voice would consider inviting her to do so via this website?

Also, 64 spoiled ballots? People went to the effort of posting their spoiled ballots?

Spoiled ballots don’t necessarily mean just deliberately spoiled ones. It also includes things damaged in the mail (ie, too soggy to read) and people who failed to understand the instructions on the ballot paper.

Considering you and your Tory colleagues are considering bringing in a law that makes a Union ballot for industrial action null and void unless 51% of the membership eligible to vote , vote for industrial action ie non returns count as no votes. Don’t you consider it somewhat hypocritical when less than 50% of the membership bothered to vote in your own elections.

As nearly 4 in 5 members didnt vote for Tim, can I ask him to go carefully. Please ignore the urgings of some of your supporters to go in with fists flying & remember that the Presidents first job is to keep the Party united.

@vince – I think the key difference is that the election of a new Lib Dem Presdient doesn’t disrupt anyone else’s daily life. Strikes do. If the Government was considering enforcing a minimum turnout for internal Union elections that would be a different matter and would, indeed, be wrong.

Congrats to Tim Faron.I voted Susan Kramer partly as TF already was an incumbent MP and she was not.But I now expect him to steer the Party onwards and upwards and to listen intently to feedback from `grassroots’.Good Luck and win By-Elections!

“Does anyone know how the total ballots sent out (i.e. The membership) compares with the last accurate measurement of party membership ?”

At the end of 2009 membership was 58,768. So when the ballot papers were sent out it was 7,093 (or 12.1%) higher than that.

That compares with Nick Clegg’s claim in September that membership was up by 15,000 (heaven knows where that came from!) and a statement in July that membership of the English party had risen by 13.9% in the first 6 months of the year.

Roz, thank you for giving us the result.
To balance the comments, I admit to being one of those disappointed.
I think the president should not also be an MP, as one would expect an MP to be fully involved with his parliamentary job and not have the time to be a party official as well. Knowing how hard you worked visitng local groups, chairing party committees, I cannot imagine how one person can do both jobs.
It is also unfortunate that Tim’s first action has been to write the Guardian article on the tuition fees “Poll Tax”. This is very simplistic and Daily Mail .
The coalition agreement is for our MPs to preserve their honour by abstention in the vote; they should just shut up and do this instead of winding up the next student demonstration. Will Tim be marchng with them?

For those of us in the 40% of students who study part time the deal has have ended the injustice of discrimination; the tories would not have done this.
Elizabeth

I think the key difference is that the election of a new Lib Dem Presdient doesn’t disrupt anyone else’s daily life. Strikes do.

The important difference is more that “not voting” carries a sense of “this is not worth a strike” in one case, and just “I don’t care who the president is” in the other case. Obviously it’s more complex than that, but that’s the fundamental difference between the two.

Andrew. what a load of rubbish , if that was the case and somebody believed it wasn’t worth a strike , surely theyd vote that way. To me it says that they are happy to go along with what the majority want which is no different to what has happened with 59% of your membership.

@Elizabeth
“The coalition agreement is for our MPs to preserve their honour by abstention in the vote; they should just shut up and do this instead of winding up the next student demonstration. Will Tim be marchng with them?”

How does this preserve the honour of those who willingly pledged to vote against a rise in fees. Sorry it is a matter of honour and integrity and your new president seems to have it whilst your leader does not.

Did the Presidential ballot follow the same rules as for PPC selections, i.e. you need to have been a member for 12 months and renewed your membership before you can vote? In the case the number of ballots issued doesn’t really help at all in ascertaining the current level of membership.

“Did the Presidential ballot follow the same rules as for PPC selections, i.e. you need to have been a member for 12 months and renewed your membership before you can vote? In the case the number of ballots issued doesn’t really help at all in ascertaining the current level of membership.”

As I’ve already pointed out, the number of ballot papers issued was 7,093 more than the number of members as at December 31st 2009. So obviously not.

@ Dominic: No, the presidential ballot doesn’t follow the same rules as for PPC selections.

This is because the 12-months-membership rule was passed by English Council, not by Federal Conference, and so only applies to all-member elections within the English State Party (i.e. for Local Party elections and PPC selections).
The Federal Party Constitution has not been amended to introduce such a rule, however – so Federal Party all-member elections (for Leader and for President) remain open to all members irrespective of their length of service.

Post a Comment

Lib Dem Voice welcomes comments from everyone but we ask you to be polite, to be on topic
and to be who you say you are. You can read our comments policy in full here.
Please respect it and all readers of the site.

If you are a member of the party, you can have the Lib Dem Logo appear next to your comments to
show this. You must be registered for our forum and can
then login on this public site
with the same username and password.

To have your photo next to your comment please signup your email address with Gravatar.